Market Report – Q4 2017 eBay Auctions

Happy new year everyone, let’s start the year off by recapping some eBay sales from the last quarter of 2017!

October 2017

Invincible #64, page 10 by Ryan Ottley & Cliff Rathburn – $796

As postulated in my April 2017 Market Report, Invincible OA appears to be increasing in value pursuant to its movie announcement. $800 for this intense, intricately-rendered battle page is a strong sum – although it remains to be confirmed whether that's mainly due to movie anticipation or the fight with popular baddie, Conquest.

There were probably over a hundred Newton Batman and Detective Comics pages sold on eBay from September to December. Despite this deluge of Newton Bats OA, prices remained solid and consistent throughout, with decent panel pages featuring heroes/villains selling for around $600-900. Strong battle panel pages and splash/half-splash pages went for $1k-3k+. Pieces featuring the Joker performed particularly well (because everyone loves a good bad guy)!

Avengers #112, page 17 by Don Heck & Frank Bolle – $880

This page from minor key comic, Avengers #112 (1st Appearance issue of Mantis), finished right at current FMV for artwork from this Heck run. Although, in my opinion, that means it’s slightly undervalued. Even though it doesn't feature her, decent non-Mantis pages like this one, hailing from her 1st Appearance issue, should probably fetch premiums to pages from other issues in the surrounding run.

Arcane Denial #2 by Richard Kane Ferguson – $7,106; 8″x6″

Walk the Plank by Christopher Moeller – $2,600; 11″x9.25″

Two pretty significant Magic: The Gathering card artworks were sold in October. These are higher caliber pieces, with more historic and artistic significance than the pieces discussed in my September 2017 and December 2017 Market Reports.

Arcane Denial is arguably one of the best counterspells in the game, and hails from 1996's Alliances set – relatively early in M:TG's history. It’s painted by “RKF”, a greatly respected artist within the annals of Magic, and is one of his most memorable pieces. Considering the pedigree and nostalgia surrounding this vintage piece, $7.1k no longer seems like such a big price for artwork so small!

Walk the Plank, by comics and gaming veteran artist Christopher Moeller, is the last piece he's producing for M:TG. It's a brand new painting, but given Moeller's status in the hobby, enough significance was attached to his last piece to reel in a hefty bounty!

There were also several large modern paintings of planeswalkers, dragons and notable characters, which each sold for between $2k-6k+ from September to December. The M:TG OA market certainly appears to be gathering momentum!

November 2017

X-Factor #28, page 10 by Walt Simonson & Bob Wiacek – $781

I think this Simonson XF page finished slightly below FMV. More significantly, the sale perfectly illustrates two things: 1) eBay remains a viable hunting ground for underpriced quality artwork; and 2) the dangers of a “quick flip”! This page last sold for $1,613 in June 2017 on Heritage Auctions, once again underscoring the fact that OA should be taken off the market for a period of time, in order to realize profitable returns when resold.

Granted, these two are covers to General Mills mini-comics rather than canonical DC books, but those prices still look like fine deals given the quality rendering on display. Moreover, longtime fan-fave Gary Frank’s star is on the ascent – DC has provided a renewed push by putting him on high profile projects such as Doomsday Clock, and values of his older work on titles like Incredible Hulk are rising. Now could be a good time to jump on the Frank train!

Doctor Strange #36, page 8 by Dan Lawlis & Andrew Pepoy – $300

Spider-Man #24, page 9 by Larry Alexander & Andrew Pepoy – $300

With April 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War on the horizon, these two pages from Infinity saga tie-ins appear to be good value buys with fair upside. Both are drawn by journeyman artists, but do feature multiple large, dynamic shots of leading men and woman from the MCU. I personally prefer the page from Doc Strange’s Infinity Gauntlet epilogue to Spidey’s Infinity War crossover, but either should make an Infinity fan happy!

Fantastic Four #359, page 2 by Paul Ryan & Danny Bulanadi – $169

Fantastic Four #362, page 16 by Paul Ryan & Danny Bulanadi – $153

I’ve long felt that Ryan’s FF OA is fantastic value for money, given the quality of art and characters involved. Prices took a slight bump pursuant to Paul’s passing in March 2016, but appear to have settled down again. At current levels, fans of the FF, Ryan or superhero comics in general should definitely look into picking up some of these fine pages.

December 2017

Prices of Cheung OA seem to have softened over the past few years, and it’s now possible to acquire action-packed pages with main Marvel characters for affordable sums. That’s good news for fans of Jim’s art, and I’ll certainly be on the lookout for some nice pick-ups!

Marvel Zombies #5, pages 2&3 DPS by Sean Phillips – $910

Anyone who’s familiar with my Marvel Cosmic fetish knew I’d take great interest in this gorgeous double-page spread. But for some reason I didn’t bid hard… and looking at it now, can’t for the life of me figure out why! This previously sold for $721 in July 2014 on eBay; 26% appreciation over three years is a paltry amount for this beauty. Whoever won it got a marvelous Christmas gift indeed!

The pricing on original comic art just continues to blow me away. I officially bowed out of the original comic art market back in early 2016 as the pricing just got too high for me. Even quality pieces by up and coming artists, which is really where I focused most of my purchases the last couple years I collected, are fetching prices that are roughly 3-5x what they were just a few years back. As things are now, I would much rather put my money into 1:3 prime 1 statues, 1:4 XM statues, and 1:4 Sideshow statues than buy pieces of original comic art. The original comic art route might still be the better investment, but I ultimately get a lot more enjoyment these days from 1:3 & 1:4 statues, especially given the quality of the statues that are currently being produced, than I do pieces of original comic art. And I already own a pretty sizable collection of original comic art so I am pretty content with my collection as is.

If we ever reach a point where we see a sharp decline in overall pricing, which is looking very unlikely at this point in the game, I might start collecting again.